


To the Victor

by deathmallow



Category: Chuck (TV)
Genre: Casey also has a thing for Russian women?, Casey loves his guns, Dirty Commies, F/M, Fight Sex, Pre-Canon, season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-30
Updated: 2012-04-30
Packaged: 2017-11-04 13:39:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathmallow/pseuds/deathmallow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>To the victor, the spoils.</i> A one-shot for Casey, Gertrude and that first encounter in Minsk, 1995.  (Written post 5x03, "Chuck vs. the Frosted Tips")</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Victor

**Author's Note:**

> Rated T for elements of violence/injury and a scene of fade-to-black non-explicit sex.
> 
> Oh, "Chuck", we miss you so. Some details of this story were taken from an easter egg on the Verbanski Industries website on NBC.com

Sitting in his hotel room, Captain John Casey was a little pissed off. A drink of Johnny Walker Black was doing wonders to dull the irritation and the pain in his shoulder from where the knife blade had sliced it.

The wound wasn't the concern. He'd taken worse. He'd just stitch it up himself. But he had several things on his mind.

First, he didn't like to lose a tough one. This one had been grueling-three weeks on the trail, from Johannesburg to Tuscany to Bangkok and now here in Minsk. He was dead tired and only helping shove the bloodthirsty bastard's ass in a tiny little cell somewhere he'd never see the light of day again would have made up for it.

Second, this was the second one he'd tanked in a row. Couldn't win 'em all, but a (second) failed assassination on that maniac Commie despot Goya down in Costa Gravas last month followed by losing out on a target to an ex-KGB agent? That was the sort of thing that made people start wondering if you were losing your touch.

Third, _her_. The ex-KGB in question. He'd heard rumors about someone else on the trail and he'd kept his eyes open. On boarding the train, he'd scoped it out carefully. He just hadn't looked up, because who the hell pulled a Spider-Man move like creeping along a _ceiling of a train_ just to reach a target? But even as he was about to pull his badge and make the arrest, she'd gotten the drop on him from above.

Being soaked and cold in the autumn Minsk weather didn't matter. The target didn't matter either. Surviving was what mattered, because neither of them gave an inch. He didn't even realize he was smiling as he fought her until he saw the answering expression on her face. This was something special, all right, because he hadn't had a fight this good since Ty Bennett, and that was sparring. He hit her with a solid left in the ribs that might have cracked a couple. She got him in the shoulder with her knife and as he instinctively winced, with one deft move, she was holding his gun and pointing it at him. "Sorry," she said, and it almost looked like she regretted it, "but I can't have you following me." Strangely, as she gave the knockout blow and everything started to go black, he had the sensation of being helped down to the train's carpet rather than just being left to take the full force of the fall.

He came to a few minutes later and both she and the target were long gone, and his shoulder wound hurt like hell. He found a secure line and reported in that he'd lost the target to another operative. That was when they told him who she was. _Gertrude Verbanski_ : ex-Soviet. Cute move by the KGB there. German first name, Polish last name, supposedly born in Gdansk, the English polished up to an American accent: probably engineered to make the right people think she was some kind of Western sympathizer. Since the Soviet Union collapsed, now she was freelance, working for whoever paid her.

He got the wound stitched up in his hotel room; not the first sutures he'd given himself. But he grumbled over how it had cut over one of his favorite scars from that take-down of the Yakuza agent. He drank his whiskey and thought about how she was everything that he loathed as a patriotic American agent. A former Communist agent, a mercenary. But his thoughts kept turning to how graceful and deadly she'd been in that fight, meeting him strike for strike. He'd finally met someone like that who could match him. He'd felt incredibly alive, pushed to his limits. If she'd killed him he could almost have died happy in losing to someone worthy like that. Worthy? But she was a Commie. Skill spoke a language of its own, though, didn't it, something beyond borders and languages? But she was a lowlife sellout for whoever paid the bills. Well, it was probably better than working for the Russians. He kept arguing with himself.

Other agents screwed up when it came to who they screwed, but not John Casey. The NSA was already giving him a rap of being something of an aloof ice-man. He'd had Kathleen and the cost of keeping her safe had been losing her forever by making her think he was dead. He wasn't interested in the complications of romance and the lies he would have to tell to keep a another woman safe. (But she could protect herself.) He certainly shouldn't be the sort to be passionate and reckless enough to even think about getting involved with someone like Gertrude Verbanski, no matter how good a fighter she was. But she had his gun. He liked that gun. It was irresponsible to leave a gun in the hands of the enemy. He should go get it back. It wasn't like he was after anything more. Telling himself that was a good excuse, he managed to track her down under another alias. Wouldn't you know it-at the very same hotel. It was like fate.

He went and knocked on her door. She answered. "John," she said, with that same half-smile she'd had while they fought.

"Gertrude," he answered, like they were old acquaintances. Just like that, it was mutually understood they'd made the calls and found out the intel on each other. She knew he was American NSA. He knew she was ex-Soviet scum.

"I hope you're not here to be a sore loser," she said, standing back to allow him into the room.

"O'Malley's yours." She'd won the prize fair and square, he'd admit that much. "I'm here about my gun." He nodded to it, already snug in a padded case on the dresser. At least she was treating it with respect.

"You expect if you just ask I'll give it back?" She laughed, low and husky. It did odd things to his pulse. "You probably would ask nicely, too, since you bothered to knock rather than break in. Chivalrous. I'll bet you were quite a Boy Scout."

He'd been an Eagle Scout. It bothered him to be so easily read. He'd spent so much time trying to put Alex Coburn behind him and not let the shy Midwestern boy he'd been show. That man was dead. He kept reminding himself of that. "We both know that's not gonna happen." He wouldn't ask, and she wouldn't give in if he did. If he wanted the gun back he'd have to win it back in a fight, just like she'd taken it from him.

She didn't waste more time, or ask him if it was really about the gun. She kissed him, and he kissed her back like he knew he wanted to do, guilt or not.

A few hours ago they'd honestly been trying to kill each other. His shoulder was thick with gauze and tape and once he got her shirt off he saw the bandages around her ribs. They didn't apologize for that. They were too busy in something that was part fight, part sex, and one hundred percent the most erotic experience of his entire twenty-eight years.

She fell asleep before he did, dozing off and trusting him to not kill her in her sleep. He wouldn't do that. He might be an assassin on some missions but if he ever had to kill her it should be in honest combat. He slipped from the bed and got dressed, the aching shoulder leaving him a bit clumsy. He looked at the gun as he passed by and reached for it, hesitating, and then dropping his hand with reluctance. He hadn't beat her to win it back. This second round was definitely a draw.

At least, he thought she'd been asleep. As he opened the door to go, he heard the low laugh again from the direction of the bed and she said, "I knew you wouldn't take it." He grunted at that and left, shaking his head. He knew the smart move would be to never see her again, and silently he bid goodbye to both the gun and the woman.


End file.
